Throughout my marketing career, I’ve kept a SWIPE FILE (inspiration file) of my favorite MARKETING IDEAS: tweets, thoughts, articles, podcasts, ads, TikToks and our favorite, MEMES.
Every week I’ll be sharing 3 of my favorites from my archives + what I’m adding to my swipe this week.
1) REAL Reviews
Today, I was deciding with my wife where to go to dinner.
The first thing she said, “We should try this place. Tinx is from London and she posted on Instagram that this is her FAVORITE London restaurant.
The reason I am bringing this up is because the best reviews come naturally on social media.
Organic content is SUPERIOR. If someone is willing to post about your brand in a positive way..You should showcase it.
Social media is word of mouth at scale.
How Gong created this wall of raving fans is BRILLIANT.
Gong didnt just put reviews up from people that they solicited for a review.
Instead, they powerfully showed that REAL people love us (Gong) so much that they talk about us (Gong) on social media.
You should be constantly monitoring what people say about you online, and if you find some great posts, SHOWCAST THEM.
SWIPE HALL OF FAME RIGHT HERE.
2) THINK LIKE A MEDIA COMPANY
The BEST companies think like media companies.
The job of a media company is to inform (and CREATE VALUE for the audience).
NOT TO SELL.
For example, if I owned a software company that sold to plumbers, I’d create produce content that APPEALED to my target audience, plumbers. Our content would be fun and valuable for them, and I’d work to the content about keeping the plumber engaged, vs. producing content that just hawked our company all day long.
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Acting like a media company allows you to CONTROL THE NARRATIVE in the market (through content).
From there, you can own the distribution of that narrative through the audience you build.
But, the first step is to deeply understand your audience first, and then to BUILD THAT AUDIENCE.
Second piece = find WHERE your audience ACTUALLY HANGS OUT.
Is your audience on Linkedin, on TikTok, are they in Slack channels, hanging on Reddit? TALK TO PEOPLE IN YOUR AUDIENCE AND FIND OUT.
Then start creating valuable content in those places – WITHOUT saying anything about your company.
Now, let’s make sure we have a strategic plan in place to give our content REACH.
The problem with most companies is that they put out content, but they don’t have distribution.
Any company can create a great piece of content, but if no one ever sees it, it then becomes irrelevant.
We’re no longer in the world of just newspapers or TV commercials. There are MANY effective ways to get the word out.
The internet created a great medium where the barrier to entry is low.
You can set up a TikTok account, blog, Linkedin Page, podcast, or Youtube channel in seconds – and off you go, ready to start posting content TODAY.
3) Michelin STARS
THIS IS THE ORIGINAL MICHELIN GUIDE.
One of the best pieces of content marketing that was ever created.
Let me give you a quick back story.
The Michelin guide started in France in 1900, by Andre and Edourd Michelin who were the founders of the Michelin Tire company.
The brothers started the Michelin guide, and at the time, there were fewer than 300 cars in all of France.
The brothers needed people to BUY MORE CARS.
More cars = more tires sold (this is the Michelin TIRE COMPANY AFTER ALL).
They decided to create the best guide for car owners with included maps, instructions on how to change tires, and the locations of great restaurants.
They gave away 3,5000 copies FOR FREE in the first year.
Eventually in the 1930s, the Michelin bortheres started using inspectors to rate restaurants (and to give out the star ratings).
Lessons learned:
- Michelin thought like a media company (refer to section 2 above)
- Michelin had an end goal in mind that informed the way they created content. They knew their WHY.
- Michelin created content that was useful, valuable, and NOT salesy.
- Michelin took a risk – they did something that was both creative and new.
- Michelin created a brand – a brand that was bigger than that of just a tire company.
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